How to Reach Your Legislators With This One Weird Trick!
The top priority for us at 5 Calls is always to #MakeYourVoiceHeard, so we’ve consulted with multiple congressional office insiders and Chiefs of Staff to make sure we’re doing that in the best way possible. And after discussing with them the various communication methods out there, we’ve got the inside scoop on the one weird trick to get heard by your reps…
Phone calls!
Why calls? Because they’re the fastest way to be heard. With Congress changing rules, bypassing procedural norms, and using obscure laws to rocket through legislature, and with an unpredictable and impulsive Administration surrounded by constantly evolving scandal, it is vital that we constituents prioritize time-effectiveness when it comes to our communication.
Here’s how the other methods break down:
Emails
Oof, just the word gives us nightmares. But seriously…
Most offices direct constituents to a web form on the representative’s website instead of a publicized email address. Before sending a message, the web form requires a user to input their address (to confirm constituency) and to select an issue topic from a menu. This allows the office’s constituent services software to pre-filter and pre-sort every message, expediting the process a staffer goes through to tally them. However, the staffers must still read every message in their overflowing inboxes to find the sender’s specific demand. This takes a staffer more time than simultaneously entering information as a caller gives it over the phone.
Aside from time-effectiveness — Emails are easier to write off if they don’t include significant personalization. Staffers use software to filter out similarly worded emails are dismissed as organized “form letters.” Similar looking faxes and letters are also cast aside. Simply copying & pasting commonly used call scripts into emails or faxes ups the risk of them being filtered out as “forms.” But what staffers cannot filter are conversations with real live emotion-wielding human beings, no matter how similar they kind of maybe potentially sound.
Faxes
Whodda thought faxes would be a thing again?
Faxes aren’t necessarily printed out and stacked on desks like one might think; most are digitized and delivered as emails. But these emails are not the same as the software-sorted emails previously discussed. Instead, faxed messages are attached to uncategorized emails sent to an inbox or folder not checked as regularly. The staffer must then open each attachment, confirm the constituency of the sender, read the message, make sure it’s not a “form”, decipher the issue topic and demand, and enter all information into the software program. That is, after finding time to steal away from answering calls or the more standardized emails. More similar to letters than emails, reading and tallying faxes can take weeks.
Also, if you plan on adding state matters to your activism repertoire (and 5 Calls definitely is, stay tuned!), many state-level representatives don’t have fax numbers. Might as well get used to making calls now. 😉
Letters and Postcards
It is called “snail mail” after all.
Here’s how everything is received via postal mail in DC:
All mail goes to an off-site facility where it is opened, X-rayed and vacuumed for anthrax or other biological agents, sent to New Jersey where it is irradiated, damaging color quality and paper integrity, sent back to DC, sorted, and then delivered to the recipient. Several weeks later.
While a handwritten message can certainly move a representative if it details a touching personal experience or an impressive level of expertise related to the issue at hand, they may not serve as the right medium for sending multiple messages a week on a broad range of topics.
Social Media
Waiting for Jimmy Kimmel to do a “Mean Tweets: Congressmen” edition…
Tweets and Facebook comments to your representatives continue to be a waste of your time. It is impossible to know which users are constituents (or humans, or non-Russians), so staffers ignore them. Facebook’s new Town Hall feature attempts to fix that problem by showing which posters are constituents, but this requires users to give Facebook their full address (after losing our internet privacy? nice try), and it is still not exactly troll or bot-proof.
Okay okay I’ll call, but… No one answers!
- Voicemails work, too! Offices review and tally voicemails regularly, making voicemails a great option for those unable to make calls during weekday business hours or who still feel anxious about conversing with an unfamiliar human over the phone.
- To beat jammed phone lines, try calling a District Office instead of the DC office! *Full Disclosure: Local offices differ in how they tally and report constituent messages back to DC offices, so time-effectiveness varies by office.
- Constantly met with full voicemail boxes or busy signals? TELL US!! We are compiling data on which congressional offices are the most or least constituent-caller friendly. Help us build up our data, and we will publish the findings to call out the representatives who care to listen to their constituents, and those who do not.
Look, we’re not saying calls are the only way you’re “allowed” to contact Congress; choose what makes the most sense to you! We‘re just saying that calls are the most effective for the time-sensitive matters we and other organizers tend to tackle, such as fast-moving government issues or upcoming votes on the House or Senate floor. Nothing breaks our hearts more than to think about the number of messages sitting in office inboxes the day after a vote — unread, uncounted, and unheard.
